Flu hasn't been as widespread this season

The current flu season generally has been much kinder and gentler to the area than last year, although it recently turned deadly.

STEVE DeCOSTA

The current flu season generally has been much kinder and gentler to the area than last year, although it recently turned deadly.

While the number of reported cases in the region is way down, influenza-related complications have been blamed for the recent deaths of two Southeastern Massachusetts women.

Patty Bill Methot, 49, of Yarmouth and Worcester died of complications of the H1N1 flu virus on Jan. 30. Her family said she had received the flu vaccine.

Christy J. Taber, 43, of Fairhaven, described as a strong advocate for herself and other individuals with disabilities, died Feb. 3 after developing Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome and multiple organ failure due to a strep infection and H1N1.

Neither the state Department of Public Health nor the federal Centers for Disease Control is required to track adult flu-related deaths, so officials said they could not determine if the two deaths were unusual.

This year's dominant flu strain is H1N1, also known as swine flu, but it has struck far fewer people than in 2009, when it reached pandemic proportions across the state and country.

Through Feb. 5, the DPH was reporting 1,397 total cases of flu in Southeastern Massachusetts, roughly one-third the number that had been confirmed in the same time period last year.

And while the peak of the flu season typically comes in February, "current activity has dipped slightly and is now at minimal," said Anne Roach, DPH spokesman.

"It has slowed down a bit," said Dr. James Chen, director of urgent care at Hawthorn Medical. "We haven't had too many positive flu cases in the last few weeks. We are not seeing an extraordinary number of cases."

The current flu season is unusual in that the illness, which typically victimizes the very young and very old, appears to be disproportionately affecting young and middle-aged adults, according to CDC.

"So far, more than 60 percent of the reported hospitalizations this season have been in people 18 to 64 years old," said Jason McDonald, spokesman for CDC's National Center for Immunizations and Respiratory Diseases. "More commonly, most flu hospitalizations occur in people 65 and older."

One possible reason for that: "It is possible that older adults have some sort of existing immunity from previous exposure to H1N1 viruses that have circulated before," McDonald said. "We saw that in research conducted after the 2009 pandemic."

Another is the difference in vaccination rates.

"Estimates as of early November 2013 were that among people 18-49 years of age, only 31 percent had been vaccinated," compared with a nationwide average of 40 percent in all age categories, McDonald said.

Chen said he recalled that "practically everyone we saw had the flu vaccine" in 2009, when he said the public was whipped into a swine flu frenzy. Now, "it seems like a fair amount did not get the vaccine."

It's never too late to get the vaccine.

"DPH urges residents to get vaccinated to protect themselves, their families and communities from getting the flu," Roach said. "The flu vaccine, in both injectable and nasal spray format, is readily available from health care providers, pharmacies and locally based flu clinics across Massachusetts."